A Daily Show story from December 18, 2003, before Colbert got his own show.

Blogger Norman Farrell: "While one arm of the BC's Liberal government is paying favourite law firms to plan legal action against the tobacco industry, in fiscal 2012, bcIMC, another arm of government, increased investment holdings in the merchants of death." Here's his article: Money speaks louder than words

Article by Kevin Diakiw in the Surrey North Delta Leader: Smokers cloud Surrey cancer centre

Excerpt: "Mayor Dianne Watts was bothered by the lack of the smokers’ sensitivity and unimpressed with the reaction the centre received from the Surrey bylaw department.

"'I’m very disappointed with the enforcement not taking place, especially in and around a cancer facility,' Watts said Thursday. 'We need to be taking this up with our bylaw officers, and if there’s an issue around staffing, we need to be dealing with that.'

"The City of Surrey has 24 full-time bylaw officers.

"Watts added the smokers should have more common sense.

"'You can’t legislate intelligence and you can’t ticket your way out of a situation,' Watts said. 'People should have enough compassion within themselves to get it.'

"Thiele said he has nothing against smokers, he just wants to be able to access his cancer treatment without running the gauntlet of cigarette smoke."

Supporting editorial: Help wanted

Bev Oda, former Federal MP and Minister of Canadian Heritage, Status of Women, and Minister for International Cooperation in the Harper government, and the tobacco industry's poster girl in Canada, has sent yet another bill to Canadian taxpayers. In 2010, a $250 penalty was added to a hotel bill in Washington, DC for violating the hotel's policy against smoking in room, and the charge was expensed to the Federal government. Here's the story from MacLean's: Bev Oda: Penalty for smoking in a hotel room among expenses MP charged to taxpayers

We can be thankful that she managed to not burn the hotel down.

For some unknown reason, the June 15, 2012 issue of the Globe and Mail contained way more than the average number of pictures of gratuitous smoking/cigarette advertising.

On pages L1 and L3, there are two virtually identical pictures (taken by one of his sons, while the article is written by his other son) of retired high school phys ed teacher Wojtek Bielski (WB) smoking! (The article, without these pictures, is here.) Same bathrobe, same chair, same table and, presumably, the same cigarette.  The only difference is the pose...and the captions:  The first one reads, "[WB] used to be anti-texting.  Now, he's 'having fun.'", while the second one says, "[WB] finds texting less intrusive than phoning."  Perhaps one day, if/when Wojtek realizes how "intrusive" smoking is (not only to his lungs, heart, etc., but to everybody else's too), he will become "anti-smoking."  Anyway, the article (which does not provide WB's age) -- the two parts, combined, represent almost half a page! -- is nothing more than a bunch of drivel about a computer/techologically illiterate Neanderthal who suddenly enters the 21st century when, as his son the wannabe journalist says, "My dad sent his first text on April 10, 2012, at 7:23 p.m.  It shook me to the core."  And it goes downhill from there!  Next time the G&M has half a page to spare, perhaps they could give it to Airspace!
 
Speaking of half a page...   Then, on page R3, there's a half-page movie review of "The Woman in the Fifth", not to be confused with "The Woman in the Filth", even though one of the lead actors (Kristen Scott Thomas) is shown smoking in the picture, which occupies about half of the article.  The headline says, "What you see is not what you get."  Very appropriate, given the fact that "what you see" is a (supposedly) sexy, glamourous, happy, confident, successful woman -- with "seductive charms and her sophisticated mien" -- smoking, while "what you get" (and, hopefully, 'what she gets' too) is the complete opposite:  Gross, ugly, disgusting lung cancer, heart disease, etc.  I can only guess that there's no discussion about smoking in the movie; Ethan Hawke looks too in love/lust with the nicoholic to say, "Put that cigarette out...and give me a call a few months after you've quit smoking."
 
And finally, as is quite common in the G&M and a few other papers, there's a full page obituary for Henry Hill, the principal character of the film Goodfellas.  He was a gangster-turned-FBI informant.  And, while he had spent much of his life in hiding (first from the FBI, then from his old criminal 'colleagues'), he eventually began to lead a more public life.  He survived the very dangerous criminal life, being an informant (probably with lots of threats to -- and/or attempts on -- his/his families safety/lives), severe alcoholism and drug abuse ("I've been on every drug humanly possible, and I can't get a handle on alcohol").  He survived all of that, but little ol' tobacco got him ("Hill had open heart surgery last year and died of complications from long-time heart problems related to smoking," his long-time girlfriend said), at the ripe old age of 69. If you've seen Goodfellas, you should recall a scene where he's discussing turning informant with FBI agents, and smoking away while discussing his need to live in a warm climate "because of his health". Yeah, right.
 
On a slightly different note...
 
With all due respect to all victims of Indian Residential Schools, every time I come across an article about the "Truth and Reconciliation Commission", I find myself wondering if/when there will ever be a Truth and Reconciliation Commission regarding Big Tobacco.

Errol Povah
 

May 31 is World No Tobacco Day. For people in British Columbia, the issues that initially come to mind on the subject of tobacco are smoking in multi-unit dwellings, smoking in parks and beaches, and sidewalk litter.

One of the themes for World No Tobacco Day for 2012 is how the tobacco industry has stepped up their efforts to have their way with national governments. A high-profile example of this is plain packaging for cigarettes, which is enacted in Australia, and under consideration in the United Kingdom. You can read more about it here.

Here's another one for British Columbians: child labour. Marty Otañez, a friend of Airspace, has published a paper about the tobacco industry's use of child labour in Malawi, the country that has gotten the most publicity in this regard. The tobacco industry's use of child labour is also widespread in The Philippines, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, and India.

This is serious. Children that are exploited like this don't go to school or do other things that children normally do. Children that work in tobacco fields are beaten, sexually abused, and poisoned by the high exposure to nicotine.

OK, so you don't shop at WalMart, or buy cigarettes. Sorry, you're still not off the hook on this. Your Provincial government, through the agency British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (BCIMC), holds shares in at least seven tobacco companies, at last count. They hold $103 million worth of British American Tobacco (BAT), one of the biggest customers of child labour-produced tobacco. They also hold shares in Sousa Cruz, the Brazilian subsidiary of BAT and another major offender.

BCIMC is supposed to operate at arms length from the Provincial government, and they tend to fly below the public radar screen. However, BCIMC has standards that they are supposed to operate by; you can read them here. Yes, these standards include the fundamental standards of the International Labour Organization. For that reason, investment in the tobacco industry by BCIMC should be an automatic “fail.”

It's time to get your MLA, cabinet ministers, and the Official Opposition interested in this.

A Berlin-based organization, www.unfairtobacco.org, is taking on the larger issue of tobacco cultivation. Not just the labour standards, but damage caused by deforestation and pesticides.

A published letter to the editor, in response to this article: Tenants fume over invasive second-hand smoke, by Tara Carman

Thank you for this article. As an asthmatic who was forced to move  six times because of smoking neighbours, I never thought I was  lucky. But unlike Ms. Borutski, I at least had the option of escape, even if I had to repeat it a few times.

Although I am currently happy in a smoke-free place, it should not  have taken me repeated nightmare moves to find it. Having to fight  for an obvious necessity such as smoke-free housing is like having  to fight to ban cholera lollipop sales in schools.

Grandfathering sounds fair in theory. In reality it protects only  smokers who already have housing, at the expense of everyone else.  Landlords are saddled with a devalued property that is available  only to people who neither smoke nor mind breathing other people’s  smoke in their own homes.

A recent New York law requires multi-unit housing providers to state  and enforce their smoking policies. There will undoubtedly be some  initial reshuffling. However, unlike what smokers’ neighbours  currently face, these one-time moves will result in smokers finding  places where they won’t bother anyone and everyone else finally  finding a place where they can stay in safety and comfort.

Sera Kirk

On the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, a message from the president of Airspace:
   
On behalf of the Members and the Board of Directors of Airspace Action on Smoking and Health, the world's leading all-volunteer anti-tobacco organization, I'd like to express our most sincere condolences to the families (children, grand-children, great grand-children, et al) and friends of all those who were lost in the Titanic tragedy 100 years ago today.
   
As tragic as the sinking of the Titanic was, it was an accident.

Globally, at the rate of one death every five seconds, tobacco kills the same number of people - about 1,500 - every two hours. That's every two hours. 

For the record: after the impact with the iceberg, the Titanic continued to float for about 2 3/4 hours.

Tobacco is a Titanic tragedy... every two hours. And that is no accident.
 
Help Airspace Action on Smoking and Health put an end to the massacre.